February 1971 lunar eclipse

A total lunar eclipse took place at the Moon's descending node of the orbit on Wednesday, February 10, 1971, the first of two total lunar eclipses in 1971. It had an umbral magnitude of 1.30819. The Moon narrowly missed the center of the Earth's shadow due its gamma being >0.2725 at 0.27413 . The Moon was plunged into darkness for 1 hour, 22 minutes and 11.4 seconds, in a deep total eclipse which saw the Moon 30.819% of its diameter inside the Earth's umbral shadow. The visual effect of this depends on the state of the Earth's atmosphere, but the Moon may have been stained a deep red colour. The partial eclipse lasted for 3 hours, 44 minutes and 42.9 seconds and in total. Occurring only 2.7 days before apogee (Apogee on Saturday, February 13, 1971), the Moon's apparent diameter was 5.9% smaller than average.

February 1971 lunar eclipse

Total eclipse
Date	10 February 1971
Gamma	0.27413
Magnitude	1.30819
Saros cycle	123 (50 of 73)
Totality	82 minutes, 11.4 seconds
Partiality	204 minutes, 42.9 seconds
Penumbral	369 minutes, 37.3 seconds
Contacts (UTC) P1 04:39:52.5 U1 05:52:17.4 U2 07:03:33.4 Greatest 07:44:39.6 U3 08:25:44.8 U4 09:37:00.3 P4 10:49:29.8

Visibility

It was completely visible from North America, rising from Eastern Asia, Australia, and setting over South America, Europe and Africa.

Related eclipses

Lunar year series

Lunar eclipse series sets from 1969–1973
Ascending node					Descending node
Saros	Date Viewing	Type Chart	Gamma		Saros	Date Viewing	Type Chart	Gamma
108	1969 Aug 27	Penumbral	−1.54066		113	1970 Feb 21	Partial	0.96198
118	1970 Aug 17	Partial	−0.80534		123	1971 Feb 10	Total	0.27413
128	1971 Aug 06	Total	−0.07944		133	1972 Jan 30	Total	−0.42729
138	1972 Jul 26	Partial	0.71167		143	1973 Jan 18	Penumbral	−1.08446
148	1973 Jul 15	Penumbral	1.51782
Last set	1969 Sep 25				Last set	1969 Apr 02
Next set	1973 Jun 15				Next set	1973 Dec 10

Saros series

Lunar saros series 123, repeating every 18 years and 11 days, has 25 total lunar eclipses. The first total lunar eclipse of this series was on July 16, 1628, and last will be on April 4, 2061. The two longest occurrence of this series were on September 20, 1736 and October 1, 1754 when totality lasted 106 minutes.

It last occurred on January 29, 1953 and will next occur on February 20, 1989.

Half-Saros cycle

A lunar eclipse will be preceded and followed by solar eclipses by 9 years and 5.5 days (a half saros). This lunar eclipse is related to two total solar eclipses of Solar Saros 130.

February 5, 1962	February 16, 1980

See also

• List of lunar eclipses
• List of 20th-century lunar eclipses

External links

• 1971 Feb 10 chart Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA/GSFC